Set up your builds to use a variable to control whether secure links are http or https. For development builds, the variable can be set to "http"; for production or staging server builds, "https".

You can also just use https on development machines as well, but use self-signed certs. I avoid this approach, though, because Selenium testing in most browsers is broken by the browser popup warning. (If you aren't using Selenium, though, this is a simple solution to your breaking pages).

As far as hiring someone -- I think posting to HN is a good start. Unfortunately, your best shot is someone who has some spare time to spare for a side project (because it's a fairly sure thing that the kind of person likely to have any real experience in continuous deployment has a real job already).

Alternatively, you can hire someone to help figure it out for you. That was actually one of my "trial" tasks at my current main job -- I figured out Selenium testing for them, designed a bunch of tests (this was also a great way to learn the webapp) and wrote a standalone GUI so the anyone (including the CEO) can tweak, run & step through all existing tests.

I was attracted to the job because it's completely remote (required for me, as I'm not allowed to be employed in the country where I live), and I had lots of experience in the technologies they're using. They didn't hire me for experience in automated testing (I didn't have any); they hired me because they thought I'd be able to figure it out quickly.

HTH.